Nerve or blood vessel compression, cervical or carpal tunnel syndrome, osteoarthritis of the fingers, and rheumatoid arthritis often cause numbness in the fingertips.
MSc. Dr. Calvin Q Trinh, Director of the HMR Unit for Rehabilitation and American Standard Body Shape, said that numbness is a condition of partial or complete sensory disturbance or paresthesia. Patients feel numbness in the fingertips or entire fingers, a feeling like being pricked by needles or bitten by ants, and a loss of sensation in the fingertips. Fingers can also be numb, painful, initially appearing at the fingertips and then spreading to the entire fingers or hands, arms, causing difficulty in daily activities or work.
According to Dr. Calvin, numbness in fingertips is often caused by the following common causes:
Due to nerve and blood vessel compression
Occurs when maintaining a static posture for too long, hindering blood circulation, causing stress and compression on the nerves. When performing postures such as driving continuously for many hours, sleeping in one position, resting the head on the hand, sitting and typing continuously on the computer… for a long time often leads to numbness in the fingertips. For this type, moving or changing posture, the symptom of numbness in the fingertips will disappear on its own.
Cervical radiculopathy, cervical syndrome
This health condition is also known as cervical radiculopathy or cervical-brachial syndrome. The cause of cervical radiculopathy is closely related to cervical spondylosis and cervical disc herniation. The underlying cause of the above consequences is due to the imbalance of the neck and shoulder muscles that has lasted for many years. Therefore, when the disease occurs, the nerves responsible for transmitting signals to and from the fingers are inevitably affected, leading to numbness in the fingertips.
Signs of cervical plexus compression include neck fatigue, persistent neck pain, often worsening when tilting the neck up or down. Discomfort also occurs when turning the neck to the left or right; pain radiates from the neck to the shoulder, arm and fingers; numbness in the area of the compressed nerve plexus.
Carpal tunnel syndrome
Carpal tunnel syndrome occurs when repeated pressure compresses the median nerve in the carpal tunnel. Patients experience numbness, tingling, electric shock, or loss of sensation in the fingertips. These pains often occur suddenly, increase at night and when moving or working, and decrease when resting.
The sharp pain, numbness, and tingling sensation along the median nerve gradually causes loss of mobility and grip in the hand. Patients need surgical intervention or rehabilitation to avoid complications.
Degenerative arthritis of the fingers
Clinically, osteoarthritis of the fingers often has numbness in the fingers accompanied by pain and swelling of the joints. The pain increases with movement, work and decreases with rest, the pain increases gradually during the day, and is more painful in the afternoon. In addition, there may be mild swelling of the thumb metacarpophalangeal joint, the proximal and distal interphalangeal joints of the index and middle fingers of the entire hand.
Finger joint degeneration is a disease related to the general aging process of the body, the elderly have a higher rate of disease.
Clinically, osteoarthritis of the fingers often has numbness in the fingers. Photo: American Italy
Rheumatoid arthritis
The disease tends to affect small joints at first, typically the joints of the fingers, hands, toes, and feet, and then it begins to affect larger joints. The disease causes painful swelling of the lining of the joints and can eventually lead to bone erosion or joint deformity. Numbness occurs because the disease compresses the nerves around the joints.
Patients often have symptoms of morning stiffness that lasts at least an hour, inflammation (swelling, heat, redness, pain) of the joints of the hands and wrists, sometimes symmetrical on both sides.
Peripheral neuropathy
Peripheral neuropathy often occurs due to causes such as physical trauma (the main cause of peripheral nerve damage), vitamin B12 deficiency, diabetes, alcohol abuse, infections, genetic factors, metabolic diseases or exposure to toxic chemicals…
Symptoms of the disease often depend on the location of the damaged nerve and will have different symptoms in each person, which can manifest through sensory, vegetative or motor disorders. Numbness in the fingertips is often related to sensory nerves, which is also the most common symptom.
Diabetes
Numbness in the fingertips can also appear with typical symptoms of diabetes such as eating a lot, drinking a lot, urinating a lot, and weight loss.
Numbness in the fingertips is a serious complication of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Risk factors associated with this complication may include chronic progressive diabetes, frequent smoking, being overweight, being obese, and vitamin B12 deficiency.
Raynaud’s syndrome
Raynaud’s syndrome is a condition in which small peripheral blood vessels suddenly and violently constrict when exposed to cold or stress. At this time, the blood vessels can narrow and obstruct blood circulation to the body’s tissues. Over time, this leads to numbness in the fingertips.
This condition can occur in the fingers, toes, ears, nose, or nipples. The incidence is 1:1 in both men and women. Sometimes anemia leads to skin ulcers and gangrene of the fingers and toes.
Some other reasons
Injuries caused by traffic accidents, work accidents, falls… if not treated thoroughly, will gradually cause numbness in the fingertips.
Stress, work pressure, and prolonged life can also cause numbness in the fingertips.
A poor diet, lacking in vitamin B12, calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, zinc, causing serious deficiencies, can lead to numbness in many people.
As we age, the ability to pump blood from the heart to the limbs is not as fast as before, which can easily cause numbness in the fingertips of the elderly. Weather changes and cold also affect the vascular system, causing numbness in the fingertips and toes.